Going Gypsy: One Couple's Adventure from Empty Nest to No Nest at All

by David James

  I stepped back and took a look at the door. Pretty standard setup—a brass knob with a push-button lock, a deadbolt with the standard thumbturn mechanism. The knob lock’s push button was popped out, but the thumbturn was set in the horizontal position. How did that happen? David knew I was going out, and he wouldn’t have thrown the deadbolt to lock me in. Maybe it’s automatic, a security thing.

  I threw the thumbturn to vertical, grabbed the knob and pulled. No good. The knob itself wasn’t turning, making me think that the deadbolt was the only thing holding the door shut. But I could hear the deadbolt sliding as I moved it back and forth while I tugged on the door.

  An uncomfortable sweat was beading in my hairline. I pushed in the knob button and it popped right back out, which triggered a crazed yanking frenzy and a full-blown sweat.

  Then it hit me—call the front desk! Wait. The clerk and I had no language in common; how was I going to explain my predicament? That problem solved itself—there was no phone in the room.

  Cell phone! I dug it out of my bag, only to realize I didn’t have the front desk number. I frantically rummaged through drawers for an Italian version of the yellow pages, or a matchbook, or anything with the hotel number on it, but came up empty.

  Determined not to call David, admit defeat, and catch the onslaught of teasing that was sure to follow, I sat on the bed and glared at the door. On the other side I could hear someone in the hallway, but my desperation level hadn’t reached pound-on-the-door-to-beg-some-weary-traveler-for-help status yet. It’s just a freaking door—how hard could this be?

  I checked the door hinges to be certain I’d been pulling in the proper direction. I repeatedly flipped the deadbolt while tugging. The stupid thing had to be broken.

  Audrey-Hepburn-in-Roman-Holiday had now officially become Audrey-Hepburn-in-Wait-Until-Dark. Casting all dignity aside, I threw myself at the door and start wailing on it in hope of a rescue. No one around. Crap.

  Italian door: 2. Veronica: 0. I admitted defeat.

  Reluctantly, I picked up my cell phone and called David.

  “Yeah, honey, what’s up?”

  “I can’t get out of the hotel room and don’t you dare make fun of me because I’m really pissed off,” I said through clenched teeth. “The friggin’ lock is broken.”

  “It’s not broken, the button on the knob opens it. You just have to push it . . .”

  “I did that! It won’t stay in!” I yelled, grabbing the unturnable knob.

  “. . . and hold it in while you pull the door open.”

  I pushed the button, yanked the handle in a total hissy fit and was knocked to the floor by the force of the flying door.

  “Thanks,” I sheepishly whispered into the phone. Then I rubbed my thoroughly embarrassed backside.

  When I got back to Veronica at the hotel, I didn’t rub it in. I really didn’t—at least I don’t think I did—but she was feeling pretty sheepish, so any mention of doors or locks sounded like a slight to her. I know that I’m usually absolutely terrible about getting a few digs in when there’s an opening, so maybe “rub it in” was a relative term.

  Anyway, retribution was swift and highly charged. The laptop needed charging. We bought a groovy little multicountry electric plug adapter set right before this trip. It’s pretty cool; a US-style outlet attaches to several foreign varieties by sliding onto some electronic connectors and snapping into place.

  It doesn’t change the voltage, just allows our plugs to fit into European outlets, so we were still dealing with 220 volts. Not a problem. Our computers, in fact most all laptops, can happily charge on 220v current. This was especially useful because we could also charge our phone through the USB port on the laptop.

  Once I put my guitar away and stopped teasing her, Veronica asked if I could set up the adapter while she set out our picnic. It was time for justice to be carried out. I’m lucky I wasn’t carried out, on a stretcher, through the door that Veronica now knew how to open.

  For absolutely no apparent reason, I decided to plug the Italian plug part of the adapter into the wall socket before attaching the American outlet part. Then, upon attempting to slide the outlet part on, I bridged the electric connectors with my finger. Bam, 220 volts went right through me! I was literally knocked clear across the room.

  I caught a break when I didn’t soil myself, since our last will and testament now dictated that I be permanently disposed of in that event. I wasn’t sure exactly what happened next—because my arms were straight up in the air and my heart was pounding so hard and fast that no other symptoms seemed important—but I think my hair was smoking.

  Veronica was laughing. Maybe she waited until she knew I was okay, but by the time I could hear anything over the pounding pulse in my ears, she was laughing.

  Payback’s a bitch.

  By the time our trip wound down, Veronica and I had acclimated to Eurolife to the point where it seemed completely normal. At least we could eat, unlock doors, turn on the lights, flush toilets, open elevators, and plug things in without risking bodily harm.

  As a matter of fact, Veronica was starting to fantasize about staying forever, never going back to the States. Maybe she was just trying to avoid the ugly orange mess waiting for us back in Generic Midwestern College Town.

  9

  Sweat Equity

  When Veronica and I returned to good ole US of A, we were hit with a rather large dose of culture shock. In the blink of an eye, we went from Old World refinement, unidentifiable foods, and the perks of life on the road as slightly pampered artists to student housing reconstruction crew.

  Perhaps in our time away we had forgotten just how disgusting the oily orange film coating on the apartment was, or maybe it had actually grown. It was quite possibly alive and reproducing.

  But a glorious Midwestern autumn was in full swing, my favorite season, and having lived the last decade in the Caribbean, we hadn’t seen the four seasons in a while. There are only two in the tropics, hurricane and not hurricane. On the other hand, the onset of fall meant that a serious winter could not be far behind.

  Veronica had never experienced a real winter, since she had lived in Southern California, Tennessee, and St. Croix her entire life. She was actually excited at the prospect. She had her heart set on building her first snowman, partaking in a snowball fight, ice skating, making a snow angel, standing on a frozen lake, seeing a hockey game, and maybe even skiing. I, having lived high in the Rockies much of my early life, was well acquainted with subzero weather and therefore slightly less enthused.

  But I like to ski, and hockey’s okay, so we decided to live in the belly of the grease beast and fight the slime from within while we waited for Old Man Winter to arrive. Conjuring up our best construction worker impersonations, we bought a secondhand bed and moved in.

  After finishing the heavy-lifting tasks of floor, carpet, tub, and tile removal, we discovered that paint wouldn’t adhere to the walls because of the mysterious vile veneer. We tried every so-called grease-cutting cleanser available within EPA guidelines. The sinister slime simply laughed at them all. After giving serious consideration to using a flame-thrower, we concluded that we must sand the despicable crust off.

  It sounded simple enough, until the gelatinous goo gummed up all of our sandpaper in a matter of minutes. The removal of the distressing slime had become the most difficult part of our entire renovation, by far. No matter what we did, as soon as the latest layer of paint dried, traces of the orange became visible. After the fourth coat I began to think it might be a hallucination, but Veronica saw it too, so I trusted my sanity. How many times could we say another coat ought to do it? A few more would be the correct answer.

  By the morning of the first snowfall, we had nearly completed our reconstruction. I woke Veronica up and said, “Honey, big news! I don’t think that any of the orange grease from hell is showing through anymore, and it snowed last night.”

  There is a magical snow globe–like quality to the world when
it’s blanketed in the winter’s first snow. Veronica couldn’t wait to get out in it. The girl had snowman assemblage on the brain since the first big chill blew through back in October, so that was the first thing on the agenda. I remained indoors to make dead sure that the furnace worked up to its full potential.

  She had no idea what she was doing, but managed to scrape a pile of frosty precipitation from the grass and fashion it into a snowman. Perhaps snowman isn’t the right word; it was more of a snow creature. Veronica didn’t care. She loved it, or him, I guess, and took to calling it The Replacement Boy.

  When she finally came inside, I told her to stay bundled up because garbage never sleeps. I gathered up a couple of bags of household trash, and Veronica followed me out with a bunch of remodeling refuse. We ventured across the vast expanse of snow-covered parking lot on a trek to the dumpster. Little did we know there was ice beneath that snow.

  Suddenly my feet were no longer under me. In fact, they were directly out in front of me, in midair. In a perfect comedy pratfall I went whomp, flat on my back. Garbage was strewn everywhere, across the immaculate new-fallen snow. A week’s worth of rubbish highlighted nicely against the pure white canvas. A work of art. A Picasso in wilted lettuce, empty wine bottle, and used Kleenex.

  “Are you all right?” Veronica was genuinely concerned, only it was hard to tell through her laughter. I couldn’t blame her. It really was a classic acrobatic slapstick tumble.

  All right? Taking a quick inventory, I found I couldn’t move, or talk . . . or breathe. It felt like I was dying. None of this fell under any definition, no matter how broad, of all right. No way to let her know this though, since I could not make a sound.

  “Honey, are you okay?” She wasn’t laughing anymore.

  I couldn’t answer. My lungs no longer seemed to work. I remembered this feeling from way back when I was dumb enough to play wide receiver in pickup games and had the life breath belted out of me by some testosterone-crazed teenage cornerback.

  I made a Herculean effort to roll over off of my back, hoping it might help me ingest a few oxygen molecules, and caught a glimpse of Veronica. She was headed my way in little-tiny-slippery-shuffle steps, determined not to replay my scene. She failed. Dapples of greasy, orange-flecked construction scraps were added to the masterpiece.

  I managed to make it to a slumped-over, hands-and-knees position, allowing a few puffs of frosty air to grace my lungs. Just enough breath that I could show some slight bit of concern for Veronica’s well-being. She was okay. She did a much better, but not nearly as uproarious, job of falling than I did.

  We attempted to carefully, very carefully, gather and rid ourselves of our garbage before the neighbors could set up their YouTube-enabled video cameras, but, like two dogs in the back of a pickup truck bouncing down an Indiana farm road, all we could do was claw for the slightest hint of traction.

  “You wanted to see winter.”

  10

  Fear Conquering and Snow Skiing

  Learning to ski at my age had me worrying about things that a younger person might not have. What if I plummeted over a cliff, broke my hip, and died from complications a week later? What if I took a blow to the back of my head from one of those chair ride thingies and ended up like an amnesia-riddled soap opera character? What if I ended up like Sonny Bono and that horrible tree? What if?

  I continually needed to remind myself when I started “what ifing” that the huge majority of “ifs” turn out just fine, sometimes even excellently. Besides, my affairs were in order, my kids grown, and my life burden-proofed. Should I take the big spill, the world would go on without me.

  It wasn’t just my age and possible frailty that had me concerned. I had a seriously bad track record when it came to delving into winter weather pursuits. I’ve actually been dragged to an ambulance by the ski patrol, quite a feat since at the time I’d never strapped on a pair of skis.

  When the kids were still at home, we hit the slopes a few times with friends, and I was always the adult who volunteered to stay behind with the young ’uns who were too little or disinterested in skiing. It wasn’t that I was so magnanimous—I just wasn’t big on strapping boards to my feet and sliding, or more likely falling, down a mountain. I wasn’t used to snow. During my formative years in the Southern California desert, we preferred to spend our time skateboarding in abandoned swimming pools.

  Luckily, most of the ski areas we visited had alternative activities in which non-skiers could partake. In North Carolina, The Boy and I decided to take on tubing—a sport where one clings to a large inner tube while hurtling down a mountainside. Unlike bobsledding or luge, there is no steering, brakes, or control of any kind. It’s more like a potato getting flung down an icy chute. At the bottom, the rider is slowed by rounding a steeply banked curve that ends with tube and rider flying up the neighboring chute, where they come to a stop. A sport with no skill involved, just hanging on for dear life. My kind of action.

  After a few exhilarating runs together, The Boy, five or six at the time, felt confident enough to slide solo, so we giddily climbed the stairs for another go. In a perfect world, the monitor at the top of the two chutes would be paying close attention to the spacing of the participants, and not flirting with cutely dressed ski—um, tube bunnies. But on that particular day, I was not living in a perfect world.

  I helped The Boy launch his tube and laughed as he went plunging down the mountain, then readied myself while the attendant helped a giggling tube bunny onto her inner tube in the chute next to me (tube bunnies are such helpless little creatures). Once Bunny’s tube came to a stop at the bottom, I was given the signal to head down.

  That’s when things went terribly awry. Somehow the enormous guy next to me was sent down the mountain prematurely.

  As I hit the bottom curve at top speed, Enormous Guy was about three quarters down his chute, careening toward me at even higher speed because of the weight-to-rubber-on-frozen-H2O-inertia-ratio theory. The last thing I can recall is a massive knee headed right for my cheekbone.

  Knocked thirty feet from the impact point, I was out cold. Upon regaining consciousness, I heard:

  “Dude, you missed it, that lady got hit in the face so hard. Awesome.”

  Past concussions aside, I really was looking forward to learning to ski. David had put up with quite a bit of my snow-related antics. The man could not go outside without me hitting him on the back of the head with a snowball. I was obsessed with perfecting my technique. Hopefully skiing would be something we could enjoy together.

  Exotic words like packed and powder were being flung about by the giddy skiers surrounding me, and I found it very infectious. So with a smile on my face, on a crisp, sunny day, I was ready to charge the mountain.

  At the lodge’s rental counter, David helped me into the daunting ski equipment as if he were dressing a two-year-old, complete with runny nose. I was horrifyingly inept. The boots alone were very complicated buggers. They were foot prisons made of a brutal, inflexible, space-age polymer that doesn’t exist anywhere in nature. For maximum support, the footwear apparently must be clamped down tight enough to cut off all blood flow below the knees. My legs were getting all tingly, and I couldn’t feel my feet at all.

  Since that seemed to mean that I was properly booted up, David led the way toward the slopes with our skis and poles. I basically had to relearn the art of walking in order to follow him. Add in two pairs of pants, four layers on top, scarf, hat, and gloves, and my limbs stuck out like a starfish. I did manage to shuffle my way across the room toward the exit and still keep my good humor intact. I was even starting to find it quite comical.

  Until I got to the stairs.

  My feet might as well have been nailed to the floor. The boots prohibited me from mounting a single step.

  I tried pulling one leg up the first step with my sweating, mittened hands. Squatting a tad, I grabbed my thigh above a bent knee and yanked. My shoulder almost sprung from its socket, but the boot r
emained firmly planted on the floor. Attempting to execute a crablike maneuver, I shuffled sideways whilst doubling myself over the handrail. Great energy expense with no ascension. But, if I am one thing, that thing is resourceful. I found my method. For the remainder of our stay, I ascended the stairs back-end first. It wasn’t pretty, but it worked.

  My intention was to first take a lesson, thus enabling the Colorado-raised David to get his gazelle-like self straight to the slopes without having the Old Ball and Chain literally be an old ball and chain. Unfortunately, an instructor wasn’t immediately available, so David escorted me to the Bunny Slope.

  He listened to my lame jokes disguised as self-deprecation while he bestowed beginner slope gearing-up tactics upon me.

  “Keep your skis sideways to the slope.”

  “Keep your weight on the uphill ski.”

  “Pop your boot into the binding.”

  He might as well have been blithering Swiss Alpine gibberish. Time and time again I misdirected my feet and sent my skis flying. Time and time again David retrieved them. The man was a saint.

  I tried to keep his pending canonization in mind as he pointed me toward a clanking contraption of spinning frozen rope dragging Gore-Tex coated three-year-olds with boards strapped to their feet up a gentle rise.

  “What the hell is that?”

  He had to be kidding if he thought I was going to attach myself to that thing.

  “The rope tow.”

  More Alpine gibberish. He looked at me as if I were one of the three-year-olds.

  “That’s how we go up the hill.”